The canvas page of Facebook pages can now be made accessible to the public.

There are two main benefits to this:

(1) If your app runs exclusively on Facebook (aka – it’s not an extension of your existing site) you now have a page you can use to promote it that doesn’t require someone to login to Facebook.

(2) Search engines will now be able to index your apps. So, if someone types into Google “music apps for Facebook,” they might get a link to iLike or Pandora’s canvas page.

Google prevent feeds from being returned in Google's search results.
Reasoning behind Google dropping RSS feeds from the results according to Official Google Webmaster Central Blog are --

. Feeds increase the likelihood that users see duplicate search results.
. Users clicking on a feed may miss valuable content available only in the HTML page.

Read more at :
Google Webmaster Central Blog
Search Engine Land

Google may be the best search engine when it comes to matching a user’s intent with the right results for general searches. But as with other forms of research, a user may want something more specific than a general encyclopedia to answer his questions. Sure, you can find apple pie recipes on Google, but can you find one that will satisfy Uncle Martin’s sweet tooth AND cousin Kate’s allergies? That takes a bit more digging, and some search engines are prepared to use a number of approaches to make the search a little less painful.

Some analysts think that the trend to which Google is most vulnerable, however, is the vertical search engines that are cropping up. If you have a medical problem, you can search for information about it at a health-focused search engine; if you want to buy someone a gift, you can check out a shopping search engine; and on and on. Others think that social networking and social search engines will chip away at Google’s market share.

The Google Blog announced the latest version of Google Toolbar . Features of this google toolbar are --

• save your settings online
• get all of your bookmarks
• custom buttons
• AutoFill information from your different computers
• clipping content using Google Notebook
• support many Google Gadgets

If search-engine rankings are supposed to represent a kind of democracy--a reflection of what Internet users collectively think is most useful--then search-engine optimizers like Fishkin are the Web's lobbyists. High-priced and in some cases slyly unethical, SEOs try to manipulate the unpaid search results that help users navigate the Internet. Their goal is to boost their clients' (and in some cases their own) sites to the top of unpaid search-engine rankings--even if their true popularity doesn't warrant that elevated status.

As online shopping grows, search-engine rankings can make a difference between success and failure on the Internet. This holiday season, 10.8 percent of shoppers will find their way to online retailers via Google alone, according to research firm Hitwise. And SEO firm Enquiro reports that the links on the very top of a search-results page--what users see without scrolling down--capture 70 percent of all users' mouseclicks. That's why the SEO profession has taken off, from a few hundred practitioners in the mid-'90s to thousands today, with many of them working inside big firms like Intel and IBM. "Having an SEO either in-house or as a consult-ant is now considered a necessity," says Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, who notes that the companies are partly motivated by keeping their critics off all relevant search-results pages.

Experts in Search Engine Optimisation dismissed PPC as far less likely to bring about results in a debate last night (11 December).

The "B2B Marketing Debate" saw SEO exponents and Pay Per Click champions clash over effectiveness and results.

The debate, at The English Speaking Union in London, saw head of search at Bigmouth Media Andrew Girdwood argue that organic results were often perceived as more directly relevant, with a lower overall cost. He said: "“People don’t want to put more money in. For B2B campaigns SEO has a definite advantage over PPC.”"

Periscopex co-founder Simon Norris defended PPC as a marketing tool and said that its plus points were that it was easy to change, start, stop and completely transparent. He asserted that PPC was a better, more targeted way to gain leads.

Stuart Small, industry leader, business and industrial markets at Google, backed up the argument and said that with 85% of all B2B purchases starting in a search engine, paid search ads were vital to any business. He added that Google sees 80% of searchers clicking on organic results, with 20% clicking on search ads.

Source /Read More : PPC shot down by SEO experts

Google Inc is looking to more advertising technology partnerships outside of its proposed purchase of DoubleClick Ltd as it expands beyond Internet search advertising, a top executive said on Tuesday.

Read more at Google looking to ad partners beyond DoubleClick

Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose, the Premier Silicon Valley Event, On Roster in 2008 for 10th Year Popular Marketing Event Has Already Broken Record for Attendee and Sponsor/Exhibitor Registration NumbersSAN JOSE, Calif.--(Business Wire)--Savvy search engine marketers are awaiting the return of SearchEngine Strategies (SES) San Jose, the interactive searchmarketing event of the year where delegates learn first hand thestrategies and tactics available to them to grow their businessonline.

The event, to be held at the San Jose Convention Center,August 18-21, 2008, is already drawing unprecedented interest fromattendees and exhibitors alike.

Source / Read more : Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose

Yesterday, the folks at security company Sunbelt confirmed that the latest trend in today's web attacks is related to Google, as more hackers attempt to get a higher PageRank in Google and bring more potential victims to their websites. Usually, they manage to do so by hacking other websites and placing hidden links inside them, but it seems that another ingenious technique is being used now. Adam Thomas, of the Malware Research Team, wrote on the Sunbelt Blog that more and ..........

Read more at God, These Google Hackers Are Smart - Ingenious method to attract a considerable number of victims

MSN build the next-generation set of tools, content and resources for SEO professionals and webmasters. Creatively named Webmaster Portal , it will be a single, friendly place to find all tools and information relating to Live Search SEO.

Live Search Webmaster Center are open for a public beta. And MSN also announced the creation of the Live Search Webmaster Center blog. According to Live Search - it is an effort to serve webmaster community better and sharing information on how to improve crawlablity and visibility.

Both center and blog are place for two way communication between Live Search and the webmaster community.

Features of Webmaster Tools :

* Troubleshooting tools to ensure MSNBot is effectively crawling and indexing
your site
* Sitemap creation, submission and ping tools
* Statistics about your website
* Consolidation of content submission resources
* New content and community resources


Read both Webmaster Tools - Open for Business and old post Our New Webmaster Portal and an Invitation to the Private Beta to know More ...

If you using GoDaddy‘s default wordpress installer then during installation of sets up it automatically install by default "Search Engine Privacy" settings. Those settings forbid Search Engines to index your website and therefore no matter how much efforts you have it won‘t get you indexed. Actually if you knew about this option, its so easy to switch the button and actually disable it and enable search engines to visit your website and actually get indexed, but in most of the cases people don‘t know about it or others don‘t look for it since we all know that the default settings for search engine privacy is disabled on new wordpress installations.

Read more GoDaddy Web Hosting causes WordPress search engine privacy issues

Google offered the overall most relevant results for 41% of searches, Yahoo Search for 33%, and MSN Search trailing behind with only a 27% most relevant share.

Google Really Does Offer Best Results

Microsoft first pulled back the link command in March of this year, due to trouble with automated queries. But as Karen reported, it seems to be back with a new prefix.

Just add a plus sign before the operators and it works. For example, a linkdomain command is now +linkdomain:www.searchengineland.com, and a standard link command is now +link:www.searchengineland.com.

Source : http://searchengineland.com/071113-083840.php

If your site is exceptionally large, you can use the date based filters to view a sample of recently indexed pages in Google to see if there are any duplication issues amongst those pages.

Questions Answered by the Website Health Check Tool


* Is Google indexing your site? Are they quickly indexing your new pages ?
* Do you have duplicate content pages getting indexed in Google ?
* Do you have canonical URL issues ?
* Are any of your pages in Google missing page titles ?
* Does your server send correct error messages ?

Read more at New SEO Tool: Website Health Check Tool

Google had a PageRank update with many sites losing lots of greenbars.
I feel there are a lot of more changes still to happen. For some SEO this Google update has been strange and some seo have different expression.

Loren Baker states the Reasons for PageRank decrease as :

Paid Linking : The easy excuse is that they’re targeting paid links, but not all sites which experienced the drop sell or buy links.

Mass Linking : Do we link out to too many sites via Blog Rolls? Does Linkbait just result in TOO MANY links, even if they are natural. Do blog networks use influential linking to their advantage? I think PageRank has been spread too thin and Google is changing its PageRank formula to address the mass publishing which has taken place over the past 2 years.

Devalue PageRank : PageRank is seen by many as the end all value of a web site. Our PageRank dropped but we are receiving more Google search traffic than ever. PageRank does not define site rankings in Google or traffic and it should not be mistaken as so.

Kill the Paid Link Market : If Paid Linking houses use PageRank as a pricing metric, then eliminating or devaluing PageRank will devalue paid linking
BTW, I’d like to add that not all of the links I took off of the Supporters part of my template were paid. They were Supporters, not Sponsored Links.

Barry Schwartz says
Will this impact the selling of links on those sites? Time will tell. Will these sites slap on a nofollow tag? Time will tell. Will this make PageRank less valuable in the eyes of SEOs? Time will tell.

For now, I think Google sent a clear message that they don't want sites to sell links or people to buy links. Will this message stop people from doing that? I don't think so, but like I said just before, time will tell

With the internet marketing industry getting more and more mainstream and mature, SEO job boards are popping up all over the internet. After JobsInSearch and the loveless effort of SEO Vacancies Ltd., the widely respected search guru Aaron Wall started a job board on seobook.

Read more at SEO & Internet Marketing Jobs

The Internet plays an increasingly important role in politics, both in terms of news dissemination and as a way to reach voters, presidential candidates are employing sophisticated Internet marketing tactics to maximize the impact of their websites.

A new report generated by Website Grader, a free SEO tool invented by HubSpot, an Internet marketing company, shows that most candidates are succeeding at maximizing their websites' potential.